Friday, April 16, 2010

beans in the garden already?

planted in the garden to date.
potatoes, which aren't coming up yet and might never.
beets, little plants almost an inch tall two rows.
onion plants, two rows they have taken well.
pole beans, yes we planted our beans already.

after observing the extended forecast we couldn't resist.
since our first year here we have been making arbors for our beans. the first year we tried to make it out of bamboo. although it was like a work of art it wasn't strong enough for heavy wet pole beans. our next year we started using cattle panels to form the arch. this has been a glorious thing. it provides a shady avenue to the back of the garden. initially the beans are like low hanging fruit. it is a delicious morning stroll.

this is the season that bamboo shoots with blazing speed. here one is skewering two oak leaves.
our bamboo hedge should finally offer substantial privacy this year.

today we mulched between the strawberry plant beds.
there are many blooms we are hopeful of a big harvest. the black raspberry brambles are doing nicely in their relative confinement.
we put down landscape cloth then a thick layer of wood chips.

this is our new grain storage.
these drums should pay for themselves in bagging fees within a few visits to the mill. they seal so well that i can tip them on their side and roll them around full of grain. originally they held tomato paste.

here is what we are using the snow fence for.
it is chicken proof and we want to keep the girls in the lower paddock away from the garden and yard.
their paddock is so large that they don't really try to get into the upper paddocks or yard.
i had to move the red farm gate to improve our chicken proofing

the new broiler chicks have arrived.
they look very slick and healthy. i like our new hatchery so far.

the upper paddock is looking very healthy this year.

some of our tomato seedlings are looking leggy. i put a fan on them to encourage stem strength.

tabitha's new additions to the root cellar are blooming.

we also started to mulch around the fruit trees.

this is last years tomato bed covered with leaves, plastic then cattle panels. i did that in the fall. soon we'll peel it back and see how our soil fared.

i still have to paint the new arbor.
other gardening duties have superseded it's final cosmetics.

kassi posed, asked me to take this shot and wants to put it on her blog.
kassi walked around with me while i took photos for this post. looking back through them it makes me feel like we have an idyllic farm for a child to grow up in, i hope so.

ang, central hatchery. they are old-school and you have to send a check and it must clear prior to your hatch date. they are a commercial provider and only offer a few commercial breeds. but their price, ooh their price, is so inexpensive. they are less than 1/2 the price of any reputable other hatchery. this is only true after the 100th chick though.

Everything looks great Karl. The arbor entrance is too cool. I will ALWAYS be grateful to you for passing on the cattle panel arches for our beans. "Low hanging fruit" is just one of the fantastic features of bean arches. They look too damn cool too.

love the one of Kassi in the field. a painting I have (artist name not coming to mind for some reason) looks similar to the picture. made me smile.Love the new arbor! I may be heading out to Harrisonville, Mo in July. I'll shoot you an email but until I get to it- would you allow me to do a spotlight video of your place for my little series? Think about it. I'll give ya a few days before I shhot an email. I'll be buggin Tansy & Phelan too. :)

WOWZER! You have got a lot done. How do you keep the cattle panels from straightening out by the way? That looks like a very nifty idea as I still don't have anything figured out for when we put our beans in.

You may have mentioned and I have missed it. What variety of bamboo is it? We're looking to provide some privacy (and hide some areas that seem to collect unsightly junk) and haven't found what we are looking for.